A Dangerous Brew
by Amanda N. Lupin
Summary: Hermione only wanted a decent night's sleep without any nightmares. But a less than sympathetic Snape is none too pleased about a wayward Gryffindor raiding his private stores and destroying his supplies. Could things get any worse?  AU, post-war
1. Chapter 1

"I expect," came a calm, smooth as silk voice from the darkness of the open closet door, "there is a flawless explanation as to why a young Gryffindor student would be out of bed at such a late hour, and raiding my private store cupboards."

Hermione jumped, cursing the mouse-like shriek of surprise which escaped her lips, and having jumped felt herself off balance on the small ladder she had scaled to read the potions labels on the upper shelves. Tumbling backwards before she could stop herself, the young witch grasped at the shelves for support, something to arrest her fall, only to pull bottle and vial after bottle and vial down with her, showering the cold stone floor in a rainbow of liquids and smashed bits of glass. Snape instinctively dashed forward and caught her as she fell, before stumbling backwards himself into the door behind him, sealing them both in darkness. Hermione sensing her professor's distress quickly jumped from his lap where she had landed and scrambled in the dark across the floor to the opposite side of the closet, ignoring the glass that cut at her hands and into her pajama bottoms.

Snape lit his wand, casting his gaze around at the various bottles and labels which now littered the floor, cursing. There had to be a year's worth of potions wasted, easily. Fortunately, or perhaps not so fortunately as it might have been nice to see Granger sporting some ill-side effects, none of them seemed to be anything that should cause real harm.

"Foolish little chit, what in the name of Merlin were you thinking of," Snape managed to bite out angrily, glaring at the young witch dimly illuminated by the light of his wand. "Mind telling me just what you were snooping around in here for anyway?"

"Yes."

"Yes," Snape repeated furiously, a single eyebrow arching up in disbelief of her cheek.

"Yes I would mind," Hermione squeaked nervously.

"Insufferable... Do you have any idea how many months it will take to replenish the mess you just made here," Snape fumed. At this at least, the witch managed to look downcast.

"No, but I'm sure it's considerable. I'm sorry."

"Sorry? Not remorseful enough to stop you raiding my cupboards were you? I would have expected better of the Head Girl than a repeat performance of your second year." Hermione's first thought was that she had not made this much mess or been caught her second year, before she realized this speech meant she hadn't gotten away with it at all, Snape had known. But how, who had told?

"You knew that was me, sir?" Snape offered a sarcastic chuckle at her return to his formal address.

"Of course I knew it was you. A Slytherin would have asked, and nobody but a Gryffindor would be that brazen. Weasley and Potter are too careless, and after you were in the hospital wing for the better part of a week, there was no doubt of it."

"But sir, if you knew I was the one... Why didn't you.."

"What, report you? Give you a detention?"

"Yes." Snape considered this for a moment.

"I wanted to see what was worth such a risk, whether or not you could make such an advanced potion. And I then I suppose I thought the tail and whiskers were punishment enough." Hermione thought with any other student, professor Snape would have pursued them relentlessly, until justice had been done, or justice as he saw it at least.

"You are a brilliant student, perhaps one of the brightest I've ever instructed, and you have a real aptitude for potions, it would have been a shame to discourage that so early as your second year."

"But all you have ever done has been to discourage me," Hermione protested unable to stop herself, refusing to believe what she was hearing from the dreaded potions professor.

"I have been rather hard on you, perhaps," Snape continued. No question Hermione thought furiously. "But you continue to pull the highest marks in potions of anyone in your year, in this school in fact."

"And I suppose that's all thanks to you," Hermione spat. With anyone else, Hermione would have been horrified with the way she was speaking to one of her superiors, but this was too much. Now he was going to claim her success in his discipline was thanks to his excellent tutelage, he had never caused anything but...

"Far from it," he continued, surprising her and derailing her angry train of thought. "You have an innate sense of what a potion needs, how to improve it, and you are brave or foolish enough to test them, even when their failure would result in less than satisfactory marks. That sort of talent isn't something one can learn." It almost sounded as though Snape were complimenting her, but that couldn't possibly be right, could it?

"Now, as to this mess," Snape said sweeping his wand over the carnage that littered the floor, and vanishing it in an instant. "I can clean the cupboard with a sweep of my wand, but that won't replenish the stock you have so effectively disposed of. You will report to me two nights a week to help me prepare and brew replacements, however long it takes to fill this closet, and I will see to it no other disciplinary action is taken against you." It wasn't a question, but Hermione nodded anyway, it was more than fair, and she could still keep her Head Girl's badge and spotless record.

"Yes sir."

"Now get out of my sight and back to your dormitory before I change my mind and let Minerva know one of her students has been out after hours." Hermione didn't need telling twice, stumbling to her feet, she tore open the door and dashed down the hallway back to the Head Boy and Girl dormitories.


	2. Chapter 2

Foolish, foolish Hermione, she thought furiously as she collapsed back against her portrait in the safety of her dormitory. Snape was right, what in the name of Merlin had been so damn important to run the risk she had? She might have lost her position as Head Girl. She might have been expelled. She might have knocked over who knew what, she could have seriously injured herself, or him. And for what, a good night's sleep? How could she have been so stupid? Of the so-called "Golden Trio" she was the only one to return to Hogwarts rather than take advantage of the opportunities afforded to them as war heroes. How would it look to return to school, only to be expelled one month later?

Her thoughts returned to Professor Snape. She didn't know what to make of him anymore, although she couldn't be sure if she ever had. He had survived. Which meant the three of them had abandoned him, left him for dead in the Shrieking Shack. That thought alone had made the idea of returning to Hogwarts a daunting one. Hermione found herself more often than not in the back of his classroom, strangely silent, attempting to take in his instructions while avoiding being seen or heard. That would be impossible now if she was to meet with him two nights a week. Did he still hate them for leaving him there? But then, surely he had thought he was dying too, to have given Harry his memories... And what was this talk about her being one of his best students? Hermione couldn't remember any instance where Snape had offered such high praise of a Slytherin, much less an "incessant little know-it-all" from his rival house.

Not very eager to turn in and return to the nightmares that sleeping always seemed to bring, Hermione lay awake pondering the possible motives of the potion's master. But this too, bore with it it's own sort of torture. The guilt of having left him there, of never having truly given him a chance. She had tried once to share such thoughts with Ron, but she might have had more luck speaking to a stone wall.

"Hermione," Ron whined impatiently. "Snape didn't give us a chance to give him the benefit of the doubt."

"Yes, but he was working for us, and after Dumbledore we left all turned on him, we left him alone, without a friend in the world."

"Hermione, didn't you hear what Harry said about his memories? He never had a friend in the world to begin with." Hermione resisted the urge to contradict him, from what Harry had told them it seemed Snape and his mother had been close, until he had started making the wrong friends. Ron didn't seem like he was in the mood to be corrected.

"It's not right," she insisted. It had been difficult enough their fifth year when the Ministry and Prophet were spreading all that nonsense about Harry and Dumbledore being liars and nutters. How much worse must it have been for Snape? For neither side to fully trust him, to have no one to truly confide in or support him as they had Harry.

"Maybe, I just don't see why it's so important. And you aren't going to change any of that by going back to school. You think he's going to treat you any differently, appreciate your sacrifices? He'll probably be the same grumpy old bat he was when we were in school. The Ministry's all but offered you any position you want, what do you need to go back to Hogwarts for?"

"Ron, I really don't want to have this argument again," Hermione tried suddenly feeling exhausted. "I don't want to get by just because I was Harry Potter's friend, and helped him during the war. Besides I can't be sure what I want to do for the rest of my life, this way I can finish my studies, and really think about what I want for my future."

"But it's alright for me to coast along on Harry's coattails then?"

"Ron, don't be ridiculous I didn't say that. I..."

"You didn't have to," Ron replied bitterly.

"Ron this isn't about you, this is about me not knowing..."

"No, it's never been about me, has it? It's always been Harry- 'the chosen one,' or you 'the brightest witch of the age,' Nobody gives a damn about 'another' Weasley."

"Ronald don't... That's not true. You know it isn't."

"Do I? Well, that's fine," Ron snapped, although it didn't sound fine. "You go back to school, Harry can become an auror and keep being everybody's little golden boy, but I'm out."

"Out? Ron what do you mean? Have you talked to Harry about this?"

"No, I must have forgot to clear it with him," Ron laughed derisively. "I've been offered a spot on the Tornadoes. On my own Merit," Ron interjected before Hermione could say anything. "I'm done living in the two of your shadows. You go back to school, see what's waiting for you when you get out. 'Cause it won't be me, and if you think you'll be anything important just because you were a good little girl and went back to school you're kidding yourself."

Hermione choked back a sob, but couldn't fight the tears that streamed down her cheeks, but Ron had already disapparated. And within the week, he had gone off for training. Hermione had tried writing him once, just after school started, but he never replied. She had received the brunt of his angst it seemed, though she was sure Harry was hurting too-he seemed a little too involved in his auror training since Ron's departure, and for her part Hermione couldn't blame him. She couldn't have said which was the less painful method, Ron never said a word to Harry before he left.

"Bloody wanker my brother," Ginny wailed one morning during breakfast. "How often do I see Harry with him in training and me back at school, and he had to go and muck up the one opportunity I might have to see him over the holidays, by making it awkward and painful to come round to the Burrow, and being a useless, selfish, git. I'd send him a howler if I thought it would do any good."

The nightmares were a different sort that night. More were dreams of Voldemort coming back, Fenrir who had never been caught returning to cut down more young lives before their time... Tonight she dreampt of the Shrieking Shack. Of a cold, severe, and lonely man, hollowed out by life and misfortune, a shadow of his former self, left alone to die, a bleeding tangle of painfully contorted limbs on the dusty wooden floor. But the dream didn't end where her memories did. While the Weasley's wept over Fred, Hermione found herself shrinking away from the Great Hall filled with bodies and mourners, her feet carrying her mindlessly back towards the Whomping Willow and through the passage that would lead her back to him. She had to check, had to be sure. He looked no better, and scarily still, and Hermione felt herself fall to her knees in front of him, her head collapsing on his chest in desperation and grief, another loss. But no, he was breathing! Faint, but there was a gentle rattle, a minute rise and fall in his chest. Hermione began performing every spell she could think of, and then some, before his eyes weakly fluttered open. Hermione felt her arms wrap around him instinctively, though mindful of his bruises and injuries, and though she had never held or so much as touched this man ever before in her life, lying there on the floor beside him she couldn't imagine letting him go. Didn't want to, ever. Hermione felt almost irresistible drawn in to his dark black eyes that stared at her in a kind of admiration and disbelief. She couldn't say what inspired it, but the next thing she knew Hermione was leaning further into him and pressing her lips to his in a soft, but insistent kiss.

Hermione woke with a jolt and bolted up right in bed. It wasn't the first time she had returned to the shack, or the Potion's master had infiltrated her dreams. Ever since they had learned of their mistake, that he was still alive, the thought of what they might have done had come to haunt her as much as any image or memories she had of the war. And she was always alone in such dreams, when she returned to him. Sometimes he was barely clinging to life and she managed to call for help or revive him. But never, in this dream, or any other had she ever kissed Severus Snape. What in the name of Merlin had that been about?


End file.
